Commentator Linda Chavez had an interesting analysis on the recent Church scandals. Blogger Mark Shea wrote a snippet that helped me keep it in perspective as well.
On a completely different tangent, I came across this 1997 quote from political humorist P.J. O'Rourke (a favorite writer of Stu and mine...):
"But I'll tell you, egalitarianism is worse than stupid, it's immoral. I think the Old Testament is quite clear about that. The Bible might seem to be a strange place to be doing economic research, but I have been thinking, from a political economy point of view, about the Tenth Commandment. Now the first nine commandments concern theological principles--thou shall not steal and kill and so forth. Fair enough. Then there's the Tenth Commandment: 'Thou shall not covet they neighbor's wife. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.' I mean, here are God's basic rules for how we should live, a very brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts, and right at the end of it is: 'Don't envy your buddy his cow.' What is that doing there? Why would God, with just 10 things to tell Moses, choose jealousy about the stuff the guy next door has? Well, think about how important to the well-being of a community that commandment actually is. What that commandment says is that if you want a donkey, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't [complain] about it, go get your own! The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to collectivists, to people who believe that wealth is best obtained by redistribution, and that message is clear and concise: Egalitarianism is sinful; it's also cowardly."I plan on reading his whole speech later when I have more time...
Lastly, there was an excellent article summarizing some of the freedom limiting moves the major media have been up to this past year. Dan Gillmor did a good job of explaining some of the issues in ways everyone can understand. He includes references to the war against the digital video recorders, the fact that DVD movies can disable your fast forward button during commercials, and a major newspaper that is trying to take legal action against external websites that link to the newspaper's articles.